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Meditations by Marcus Aurelius copy

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius copy

by fz2jjqxzgv@ · 220 things on Twos

Refrain from all anger.
Never intend evil.
Private school is an investment.
Do what you can rather than hire others.
Do not be offended by what others say.
Read with diligence.
Be the same in all circumstances, to show strength and flexibility.
Only pay attention to right and reason.
Be patient while teaching others.
Be humble while accepting favors and kindness.
Display expertise with silence.
Be free of passion, yet full of love.
Do not constantly correct others.
Don't stress to people how busy you are.
Make time for those you care about.
Make things right with friends.
Show elders respect and love your children.
Be open and honest with friends.
Be optimistic.
Never doubt your friends love for you.
Be eager to share and help others.
Always do your work.
Have power over yourself and be happy and curious in everything you do.
Do everything with good intent.
Value everyone.
Never believe you are better than someone else.
Everyone is equal.
Have self control and resistance to distractions.
Do your job without whining.
Stay on the path rather than being kept on it.
Have a sense of humor.
Preserve friendships.
Don't brag.
Work hard and stay persistent.
Do not expect friends to entertain or travel with you unless they want to.
Constantly devote yourself to the needs of the community, country, and world.
Look and do what needs doing and not what wealth is to be made from them.
Never lose control of yourself.
Approach everything logically and with consideration, but be decisive.
Preserve your youth.
Don't rush to grow up.
Live under the government of the lord and your family.
Don't think about that of which you cannot control. Your skin color, face, etc.
Be thankful to the Gods for what you have been given.
If I fail, it is only my fault.
Everyday you will deal with people who are arrogant, dishonest, and jealous, but they have not seen right from wrong and you will learn from them and are meant to work with them.
Do not be thirsty for things but grateful for what you have.
Focus on what you can do, not what others are doing.
Stop being hypocritical, self-centered, and irritable.
Have a purpose to direct your thoughts and actions.
Do, say, and think, based on the idea that you could die right now.
Realize the power that you have inside of you.
The present is the only thing you can lose, not the future or the past.
Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people—unless it affects the common good.
You should never be ashamed of what you are thinking. Think unselfishly, not concerned of pleasure.
Don't be overwhelmed by anything that happens.
Welcome wholeheartedly whatever comes.
Do not worry too often, or with any selfish motive, about what other people say. Or do, or think.
He does only what is his to do, and considers constantly what the world has in store for him—doing his best, and trusting that all is for the best.
To care for all human beings is part of being human.
Never act under compulsion, out of selfishness, without forethought, with misgivings.
Never regard something as doing you good if it makes you betray a trust, or makes you show hatred, suspicion, or ill will, or a desire for things best done behind closed doors.
Your ability to control your thoughts protects your mind from false perceptions and makes thoughtfulness possible.
Each of us lives only now, this brief instant.
Nothing is so conducive to spiritual growth as this capacity for logical and accurate analysis of everything that happens to us.
So in each case you need to say: “This is due to God.” Or: “This is due to the interweaving of fate, to coincidence or chance.” Or: “This is due to a human being. Someone of the same race, the same birth, the same society, but who doesn’t know what nature requires of him. But I do. And so I’ll treat them as the law that binds us—the law of nature—requires. With kindness and with justice. And in inconsequential things? I’ll do my best to treat them as they deserve.”
If you do the job in a principled way, with diligence, energy and patience, if you keep yourself free of distractions, and keep the spirit inside you undamaged, as if you might have to give it back at any moment— If you can embrace this without fear or expectation—can find fulfillment in what you’re doing now, as Nature intended, and in superhuman truthfulness—then your life will be happy.
In everything you do, even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them.
Stop drifting. Sprint for the finish. Write off your hopes, and if your well-being matters to you, be your own savior while you can.
Turn obstacles into fuel.
No random actions, none not based on underlying principles.
Nowhere you can go is more peaceful—more free of interruptions—than your own soul.
Rational beings exist for one another.
Doing what’s right sometimes requires patience.
No one does the wrong thing deliberately.
Keep your mouth shut.
Is it your reputation that’s bothering you? Look at how soon we’re all forgotten.
Above all, no strain and no stress. Be straightforward. Look at things like a man, like a human being, like a citizen, like a mortal.
Things have no hold on the soul. They stand there unmoving, outside it. Disturbance comes only from within—from our own perceptions.
“The world is nothing but change. Our life is only perception.”
Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been.
Every event is the right one. Look closely and you’ll see.
Keep goodness in everything you do. It defines a good person.
Use your mind.
What use is praise, except to make your lifestyle a little more comfortable?
Beautiful things of any kind are beautiful in themselves and sufficient to themselves.
Does anything genuinely beautiful need supplementing? No more than justice does—or truth, or kindness, or humility.
“If you seek tranquillity, do less.”
Do less, better.
Most of what we say and do is not essential.
Ask yourself at every moment, “Is this necessary?”
We need to eliminate unnecessary assumptions as well. To eliminate the unnecessary actions that follow.
A good man—someone content with what nature assigns him, and satisfied with being just and kind.
Don’t be disturbed. Uncomplicate yourself.
Something happens to you. Good. It was meant for you by nature, woven into the pattern from the beginning.
Life is short. That’s all there is to say. Get what you can from the present—thoughtfully, justly.
Love the discipline you know, and let it support you. Entrust everything willingly to the gods, and then make your way through life—no one’s master and no one’s slave.
Work for proper understanding; unselfish action; truthful speech. A resolve to accept whatever happens as necessary and familiar, flowing like water from that same source and spring.
Constant awareness that everything is born from change.
Look into their minds, at what the wise do and what they don’t.
Nothing that goes on in anyone else’s mind can harm you.
Recognize that the difference between years from now and tomorrow is just as small.
Human lives are brief and trivial.
It’s unfortunate that this has happened. No. It’s fortunate that this has happened and I’ve remained unharmed by it—not shattered by the present or frightened of the future. It could have happened to anyone. But not everyone could have remained unharmed by it. Why treat the one as a misfortune rather than the other as fortunate? Can you really call something a misfortune that doesn’t violate human nature? Or do you think something that’s not against nature’s will can violate it? But you know what its will is. Does what’s happened keep you from acting with justice, generosity, self-control, sanity, honesty, humility, straightforwardness, and all the other qualities that allow a person’s nature to fulfill itself?
The thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune.
Take the shortest route, the one that nature planned—to speak and act in the healthiest way. Do that, and be free of pain and stress, free of all calculation and pretension.
“I have to go to work—as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for—the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?
Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands?
You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat. Do you have less respect for your own nature than the engraver does for engraving, the dancer for the dance, the miser for money or the social climber for status? When they’re really possessed by what they do, they’d rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts.
Don’t be distracted. Keep walking. Follow your own nature, and follow Nature.
What happens to each of us is ordered. It furthers our destiny.
Get back up when you fail, to celebrate behaving like a human—however imperfectly—and fully embrace the pursuit that you’ve embarked on.
Nothing can happen to me that isn’t natural.
I can keep from doing anything that my own spirit don’t approve. No one can force me to.
Interrogate yourself, to find out what inhabits your so called mind and what kind of soul you have.
The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts.
A rational being’s good is unselfishness.
Nothing happens to anyone that he can’t endure.
In a sense, people are our proper occupation. Our job is to do them good and put up with them.
If the community isn’t injured by it, neither am I. And if it is, anger is not the answer.
So other people hurt me? That’s their problem. Their character and actions are not mine. What is done to me is ordained by nature, what I do by my own.
The mind is the ruler of the soul. It should remain unstirred by agitations of the flesh—gentle and violent ones alike. Not mingling with them, but fencing itself off and keeping those feelings in their place. When they make their way into your thoughts, through the sympathetic link between mind and body, don’t try to resist the sensation. The sensation is natural. But don’t let the mind start in with judgments, calling it “good” or “bad.”
Don’t be irritated at people’s smell or bad breath. What’s the point? With that mouth, with those armpits, they’re going to produce that odor. Then use your logic to awaken his. Show him. Make him realize it. If he’ll listen, then you’ll have solved the problem. Without anger.
If the smoke makes me cough, I can leave. What’s so hard about that?
I’m free. No one can keep me from doing what I want. And I want what is proper to rational beings, living together.
Remember, nothing belongs to you but your flesh and blood—and nothing else is under your control.
You can lead an untroubled life provided you can grow, can think and act systematically.
Not to be overwhelmed by what you imagine, but just do what you can and should.
True good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions, and good actions.
Just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn’t matter.
Look inward. Don’t let the true nature or value of anything elude you.
To move from one unselfish action to another. Only there, delight and stillness.
Pride is a master of deception: when you think you’re occupied in the weightiest business, that’s when he has you in his spell.
To do (and not do) what we were designed for. That’s the goal of all trades, all arts, and what each of them aims at: that the thing they create should do what it was designed to do.
And if you can’t stop prizing a lot of other things? Then you’ll never be free—independent. Because you’ll always be envious and jealous, afraid that people might come and take it all away from you. Plotting against those who have them—those things you prize. People who need those things are bound to be a mess—and bound to take out their frustrations on the gods. Whereas to respect your own mind—to prize it—will leave you satisfied with your own self, well integrated into your community and in tune with the gods as well—embracing what they allot you, and what they ordain.
Disgraceful: for the soul to give up when the body is still going strong.
All of us are working on the same project. Some consciously, with understanding; some without knowing it.
Whatever happens to you is for the good of the world.
Whatever happens to a single person is for the good of others.
The only thing that isn’t worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly. And be patient with those who don’t.
You accept the limits placed on your body. Accept those placed on your time.
Practice really hearing what people say. Do your best to get inside their minds.
No one can keep you from living as your nature requires. Nothing can happen to you that is not required by Nature.
I can control my thoughts as necessary; then how can I be troubled? What is outside my mind means nothing to it. Absorb that lesson and your feet stand firm.
Is my intellect up to this? If so, then I’ll put it to work, like a tool provided by nature. And if it isn’t, then I’ll turn the job over to someone who can do better—unless I have no choice.
Don’t be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you’ve been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So what?
So many who were remembered already forgotten, and those who remembered them long gone.
Forget the future. When and if it comes, you’ll have the same resources to draw on—the same logos.
I am a single limb of a larger body—a rational one.
Let it happen, if it wants, to whatever it can happen to. And what’s affected can complain about it if it wants. It doesn’t hurt me unless I interpret its happening as harmful to me. I can choose not to.
No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good.
The mind in itself has no needs, except for those it creates itself. It is undisturbed, except for its own disturbances. Knows no obstructions, except those from within.
My only fear is doing something contrary to human nature —the wrong thing, the wrong way, or at the wrong time.
When people injure you, ask yourself what good or harm they thought would come of it. If you understand that, you’ll feel sympathy rather than outrage or anger.
Treat what you don’t have as nonexistent.
Discard your misperceptions.
Stop being jerked like a puppet.
Limit yourself to the present.
Understand what happens—to you, to others.
Analyze what exists, break it all down: material and cause.
Anticipate your final hours.
Other people’s mistakes? Leave them to their makers.
Care for other human beings.
Don’t pay attention to other people’s minds. Look straight ahead, where nature is leading you—nature in general, through the things that happen to you; and your own nature, through your own actions.
Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly.
To love only what happens, what was destined. No greater harmony.
Our business is with things that really matter.
Look at who they really are, the people whose approval you long for, and what their minds are really like. Then you won’t blame the ones who make mistakes they can’t help, and you won’t feel a need for their approval. You will have seen the sources of both—their judgments and their actions.
Pain is neither unbearable nor unending, as long as you keep in mind its limits and don’t magnify them in your imagination.
It’s quite possible to be a good man without anyone realizing it.
You don’t need much to live happily.
It’s silly to try to escape other people’s faults. They are inescapable. Just try to escape your own.
Be satisfied if you can live the rest of your life, however short, as your nature demands. Focus on that, and don’t let anything distract you.
Don’t be anxious. Nature controls it all.
Concentrate on what you have to do. Fix your eyes on it. Remind yourself that your task is to be a good human being; remind yourself what nature demands of people. Then do it, without hesitation, and speak the truth as you see it. But with kindness. With humility.
Nature of any kind thrives on forward progress.
No truly good person would feel remorse at passing up pleasure.
Joy for humans lies in human actions. Human actions: kindness to others, contempt for the senses, observation of nature and of events in nature.
I have it in me to keep my soul from evil, lust, and all confusion.
You have to assemble your life yourself—action by action. And be satisfied if each one achieves its goal, as far as it can.
I have no right to do myself an injury. Have I ever injured anyone else if I could avoid it?
People find pleasure in different ways. I find it in keeping my mind clear. In not turning away from people or the things that happen to them. In accepting and welcoming everything I see. In treating each thing as it deserves.
Give yourself a gift: the present moment.
Nothing that can happen is unusual or unnatural, and there’s no sense in complaining. Nature does not make us endure the unendurable.
External things are not the problem. It’s your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now.
And if it’s that you’re not doing something you think you should be, why not just do it?
No carelessness in your actions. No confusion in your words. No imprecision in your thoughts. No retreating into your own soul, or trying to escape it. No overactivity.
People exist for one another.
To enter others’ minds and let them enter yours.
To fear pain is to fear something that’s bound to happen.
A rock thrown in the air. It loses nothing by coming down, gained nothing by going up.
Leave other people’s mistakes where they lie.
When we cease from activity, or follow a thought to its conclusion, it’s a kind of death. And it doesn’t harm us. Think about your life: childhood, boyhood, youth, old age. Every transformation a kind of dying. Was that so terrible?
Any action not directed toward a social end (directly or indirectly) is a disturbance to your life, an obstacle to wholeness, a source of dissension.
When you face someone’s insults, hatred, whatever . . . look at his soul. Get inside him. Look at what sort of person he is. You’ll find you don’t need to strain to impress him. But you do have to wish him well. He’s your closest relative. The gods assist him just as they do you—by signs and dreams and every other way—to get the things he wants.
Do what nature demands. Get a move on—if you have it in you—and don’t worry whether anyone will give you credit for it. And don’t go expecting Plato’s Republic; be satisfied with even the smallest progress, and treat the outcome of it all as unimportant.
A commitment to justice in your own acts.
You can discard most of the junk that clutters your mind —things that exist only there—and clear out space for yourself: . . . by comprehending the scale of the world . . . by contemplating infinite time . . . by thinking of the speed with which things change—each part of every thing; the narrow space between our birth and death; the infinite time before; the equally unbounded time that follows.
Concentrate on what you’re doing, and what you’re doing it with.
You’ll find that none of the people you’re upset about has done anything that could do damage to your mind.